I won't take the easy road
by seren23
Summary: 'Two months to the day Kate escapes with her life but not her family, the RV gives up the ghost. It takes her a week to come up with the nerve to leave it.' What happens next for Kate Fuller. Possibly pre-Kate/Set/Richie.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: The title comes from First Aid Kit's My Silver Lining. I own nothing. I reference several movies and I don't own them either.

A few of Robert Rodriguez's other characters make cameos in this story because how could they not? I think Cherry Darling and Dakota Block from Planet Terror would be excellent hunters. And a cookie to whoever spots the other cameo who doesn't actually appear but is mentioned! I have also played very fast and loose with the myth about the brothers.

Let me know what you think! I'm considering adding more chapters.

* * *

Two months to the day Kate escapes with her life but not her family, the RV gives up the ghost.

The trip to the resort town on the coast has been a waste of time. She thought she'd see the beach and maybe try to figure out what the hell she was supposed to do with her life, but there's nothing there worth her time and she tries to leave almost as soon as she arrives. But the camper just sputters and won't turn over. She thinks about calling a mechanic, but the more she stands there, the salty sea air ruffling her hair and imbuing her lungs with a kind of freshness she forgot existed, the more she realizes that she needs to let it go.

It takes her a week to come up with the nerve to leave it. She walks along the beach, watches tourists and tries not to think. At the end of the week, she tries to start the engine once more and it doesn't even click. She takes what she can, buys herself a used Jeep Cherokee with the money that Seth had thrust at her, and she walks away from the only thing left of her family, leaving it to rust on the side of the road.

The camper deserves the rest and the sun-tanned heaven. She doesn't. Not really. There's too much to do.

Too many left to kill.

She drives to a small cantina and goes straight for what has to be the last payphone in the world. She pulls out the small business card she's been carrying in her back pocket and dials the cell phone number scrawled on the back.

"Yeah?" a deep voice says in her ear.

"Ranger Gonzalez?" Kate asks, her voice just above a whisper.

There's a pause, then he says, "Call me Freddie, Miss Fuller."

"Call me Kate, Freddie," she says starting to grin. "I don't suppose you can help a girl out?"

"I've always liked helping damsels in distress, Kate," he says.

"Not in distress," she says shaking her head. "I was hoping you could direct me towards some institutions of higher learning, actually."

There's another pause and then, "Looking to get your GED, Kate?"

"Let's just say I'd like to expand my knowledge and gain a few more practical skills," she says. "Can you recommend anyplace in particular?"

"I might," he says. "Give me a few days and I'll see what I can come up with." He sighs and she can hear him scrub a hand over his face. "Kate. Are you sure you should be doing this?"

"Yes," she says turning her back on the way she came and looking down the new stretch of highway. "I'm sure, Freddie."

"I don't like it," he says. "It's not safe."

"Nothing's safe," she says, her hand tightening on the phone. "Not anymore. But I didn't get this far by being stupid, so help me, Freddie. Tell me where to go."

"Right. Get yourself to Monterrey and go to the café that's around the corner from the American Embassy," he says. "I'll have something for you."

"You're not going to try to take me back to the states are you?" she asks.

"Do you want me to try to take you back to the states?" he asks.

"No," she says. "I'm not going back."

"I wish you'd rethink this," Freddie says quietly.

Kate pauses. "No. You don't."

It's quiet on the phone and Kate can hear the static crackling along the line. Then he says, "No. I don't."

"Talk soon," Kate says and she hangs up.

Three days later, courtesy of Freddie's contact in Monterrey (a third cousin of his named Estéban), Kate has a list of people who will teach her everything she wants to know, a fake id, and a new cell phone.

The next two years are spent in learning what she can from whoever she can and hunting down nests of calebras and killing as many of them as she can.

She learns hand-to-hand combat from an old group of militiamen and then about knives from watching a gang in Mexico City.

It's in Guadalajara that she discovers that her talent really lies with the crossbow. She hangs out with a group of survivalists for month and a half learning how to track and hunt.

She gets exceptionally good at setting fires after a good three weeks with a travelling circus. The man who eats fire on stage is a font of information about explosives.

She learns and she hunts and she survives.

There isn't any room for anything else; she makes sure of that.

It feels…right. So she keeps at it. Makes some contacts outside of Freddie, kills a lot of culebras, and after a while the nightmares stop.

But the dreams start up two years after she walks away from the RV.

* * *

Sunlight dances across a gray stone floor and firm but gentle hands hold her and she's surrounded by warmth and strength and her palms rest against two steady heartbeats and the thrum under her hands match her own heartbeat and she closes her eyes…

* * *

Only to open them and stare at the early morning light coming through the lace curtains pulled over the open window in her room.

Morning dawns brighter on the east coast of Mexico and it stirs Kate to get out of the single bed, pull on her boots, strap on a knife, and head downstairs.

She's at Cherry and Dakota's place near Tulum for her bi-monthly check-in with the ladies and to pick up any mail she might have accumulated. She met the ladies not too long after she started hunting and it's Cherry who taught Kate how to fire a gun while Dakota taught her the basics of first aid.

The ladies and their group have their own gruesome history that took out most of their families and Cherry's right leg. They're the closest things Kate has to actual friends and after an especially close encounter with a culebra that nearly had Kate's guts for garters the week prior, she'd figured it was time to head down to see them.

Her first night in their compound was spent in the usual fashion, drinking sangria, eating good food, and telling them about the nests she'd taken out, Cherry marking them down on a large map on the wall with little red pushpins.

Kate spends the next few days resting up and letting the gash on her side heal up. She sifts through some stuff Freddie sent her, focusing on the stash of journals and papers that he'd somehow managed to find that belonged to Professor Tanner aka Sex Machine. Kate does her best to forget how the man died after he'd been transformed. Tries to forget how it was her that sent the arrow flying into his heart.

Instead she tries to figure out what he'd been looking for and every night she falls asleep with carvings and glyphs in languages she doesn't know swirling in her head and she wakes up to the echo of two strong heartbeats.

By the end of the week, she decides enough is enough and she can fucking take a hint, okay?

She sorts through everything and collects everything Sex Machine had on the myth about the brothers who tricked the gods.

It's into her second day of making notes and glaring at Sex Machine's appalling handwriting that Cherry and Dakota finally sit down across from her and take the pen from her hand.

"Hey," she says. "I'm getting somewhere."

"Are you?" Cherry asks. "Because it looks like the thing you're getting is a migraine."

Something deep inside Kate flinches, but nothing shows on her face.

"I think there's something to this whole brother myth," she says instead. She shows the women a picture of a wall carving with two figures following what looks like a ray of light. "This looks like they followed a shining beacon of some kind into the Underworld and then drew the gods out one by one and tricked them." She frowns. "Somehow."

"Crafty fellows," Cherry says. "But setting this aside for just un momento, how's your side?"

"Fine," Kate says pulling the book back towards her. "I took the stitches out last night."

"Groovy," Cherry says, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder. "Next question, why are you hitting the books so hard?"

"Because I'm tired of the small time," Kate says staring down at the picture of the two brothers. "I'm tired of taking out one nest at a time." She gestures towards the map on the wall. "Look at all those pins. Looks how many that have been taken out in the last year alone and measure it against how many more are out there. It's not sustainable. We have to go big."

"And you think you're the one to do it?" Dakota asks, her blue eyes wide and clear and her voice gentle.

"Why not me?" Kate asks confused. "I'm good at this. I'm better than some of those other hunters out there."

"We're not dissing your abilities," Cherry says rolling her eyes. "Just making sure that you really want to do this."

"It's what I have to do," Kate says tracing a finger along the edge of the ray of light in the picture. "What else is there for me?"

She doesn't have to look up to know that the other women are exchanging a look of some kind.

"All righty then," Cherry just says. "Just keep us in the loop and let us know when we need to circle the wagons. Deal?"

"Always," Kate says looking up with a smile.

"Good," Dakota says. "So you're going to lead the brothers into the Underworld?"

Kate frowns. "What? No. I mean…what?"

"Uh, shining beacon of light?" Cherry says as she gestures at Kate. "You're it."

"What? No," Kate says shaking her head.

"What does it say about the light?" Dakota asks.

"Nothing," Kate says shuffling through her notes. "There's nothing about it. It's not part of the myth."

"Well, they aren't going after the gods for the heck of it," Cherry says. "They must be getting something out of it. Or someone."

"Why?" Kate asks.

"Because, a lot of myths are based on the search or quest for something pure and beautiful, person or object. Helen of Troy or the Golden Fleece, anyone?" Cherry sits back and smiles. "Useless Talent Number 23 - I read a lot of Time-Life books when I was a teenager."

Dakota, with a fond smile, runs a hand over Cherry's hair and says, "From what we've heard about the gentlemen in question, they're going to need some kind of incentive."

"You mean…me?" Kate asks. She shakes her head. "Uh huh. No way. I'm not going to be relegated to being some kind of consolation prize hanging around in the corner while those two fight the big bads. That just seems so-" Kate trails off as Dakota and Cherry supply:

"Predictable?"

"Clichéd?"

"Yeah," Kate says.

"Well, you have to remember that most modern stories are based on myths and those," Cherry taps the book on the table, "came first."

"Okay, so if I accept that I could be some kind of stand-in for this mythical reward," Kate says while cringing. "I guess we know who the brothers are." She sighs and props her head on her hand. "Crap. I don't even know where they are. They could be living it up in Cabo, for all I know."

"No, they're around. We've had reports of them taking out nests," Cherry says. "The real question is: do they think of you as someone worth following into hell? Do they think of you as a friend or a sister?"

Kate hardly ever lets herself think about the brothers, but she remembers the kiss in the back room, how Richie's lips were warmer and softer than she'd expected, how his hands were so big they could span her entire ribcage, how he towered over her but only ever looked at her with trust. She remembers how Seth had held her when they got out of the club, his arms awkward around her waist as he held her up while she sobbed. How they'd both defended her without question.

She also remembers the thrill that ran through her when she caught them looking at her.

You know, it's a real shame the Texas school system didn't include this kind of personal stuff in those stupid Life Management classes, because Kate does not know how to cope with this level of complexity.

Since she's not quite sure how to articulate the sheer bizarreness that was her relationship with the Gecko brothers, in response to Cherry's question of if they think of her as a sister, she just mumbles, "Sometimes."

Eyebrows rise on both of the other ladies' faces.

"Annnd that's a loaded answer," Cherry says nodding. "And I'm guessing it means they'd follow you anywhere. Wow. Brothers. That's hot, Kate."

"Cherry," Dakota says, lightly tugging on Cherry's hair.

"No, I'm just saying, I've seen the mug shots," Cherry says. "Once upon a time I would not have kicked either of them out of bed for eating crackers."

"It's not like that," Kate says rolling her eyes. "It's…weird and…wrong and…just weird."

"Honey," Dakota says putting her hand on Kate's arm. "You're considering going into battle against gods and snake-people. I think weird was left at the border."

Kate slumps in her chair and covers her face with her hands. "What do I do?"

"What you do best," Dakota says. Kate drops her hands and looks at her. "You survive, Kate. However you can."

Kate glances at Cherry who's nodding in agreement and eventually Kate nods back. "Right. Survive. I can do that."

"You sure can," Cherry says. "And hey, if you happen to have some sexy funtimes with two hot dudes-"

"Cherry!" Dakota tugs Cherry's hair again.

"Ow! I was just going to say that she'd have to tell us all about it," Cherry says grinning.

Kate can't help but laugh. "I promise to give you a play-by-play should the deed ever actually occur." She pauses. "Which it's won't. Because it's weird."

"And wrong," Dakota says, her eyes wide and possibly patronizing.

"And weird again," Cherry adds.

"I don't think I like you two," Kate says.

"Yes, you do," Cherry says smiling and ruffling Kate's hair. "So what's your game plan?"

"Well, I'd like to confirm the myth," Kate says, pushing any and all salacious thoughts from her head. She picks up the book and points to a page. "Looks like there's something outside of Cuencamé in Durango that may have some relics. Sex Machine mentioned it in one of his journal entries." She sits back. "Looks like I'm heading towards the mountains."

"Send us a postcard," Cherry says. "And try to come back, okay?"

Kate gives the women a rueful smile. "I'll do my best."

* * *

The state of Durango has more mountains and trees than Kate's seen in years. The air is dry and cool as it blows through the Jeep's open windows. She drives through Cuencamé sticking to the highway, then veers off once she's outside the city limits. The old road is barely paved as she drives through the flat canyon, mountains surrounding her on all sides.

She finds the church smack in the middle of nowhere. She drives around the perimeter, then drives past and parks just behind the back. She checks her knives and her gun, then gets out of the jeep.

Her footsteps are near silent as she walks around the corner of the church. It looks like a dozen other churches she's seen over the last two years. Single story with a brass crucifix on top of the belfry and white plaster walls with a few shrines here and there. The shrines have several candles underneath them and most look new, so someone must come by on a regular basis. However, it's the trees surrounding the church that catch her eye.

Crosses of all shapes and sizes hang from the branches, catching the sunlight and casting bright squares of light on the ground and the church walls. Some are silver, some are brass, some simple, while others have delicate filigree etched along the edges. Kate stares at them for a minute, holds out her hand and watches a diamond of light dance on her palm.

Then she rests her hand on the butt of her gun and walks into the church.

The inside of the church smells familiar and it reminds her of all the other churches she's been in, filled with the scent of incense and dust and something else. She thinks it's the smell of age, of relics and worn hymnals and Bibles that have rested inside pews for decades, well-thumbed and yellow with time.

She was raised a Baptist not a Catholic, so she never crosses herself when she enters a church, but she does bow her head slightly when she catches sight of the crucifix.

To be honest, she's not sure if it's God she believes in these days. All she knows is that there are higher powers in this world and well, God seems to be the nicest of the bunch.

He only ever dealt in floods and parables, not blood-sucking fiends.

She walks slowly through the church, skirting along the side, her eyes open and her feet silent. The crosses outside continue to dance in the light breeze and the shards of light play on the floor inside.

As she reaches the pulpit and heads behind the dais, the door to the church creaks open. She quickly slips into the shadows and draws her gun.

She's taken refuge in churches before as the culebras tend to avoid them, but it's not always the snake-people you have to look out for.

Kate thumbs the safety off and listens. She hears their voices and her heart stutters in her chest.

"I swear, if that blind bastard has sent us on another fucking goose chase-"

"Wild."

"What?"

"Wild. _Wild_ goose chase. That's the phrase. It's not just _a_ goose chase. Shakespeare used the phrase first."

"Do I honestly look like I read Shakespeare?"

"You watch it. The other night. Kurosawa's _Throne of Blood_ is a version of MacBeth."

"Richard."

"Look, I'm just saying-"

"You're not saying anything. This is not a conversation I am having. We are in the middle of nowhere, sent here by some dude irrationally fixated on pulled pork-"

"Slow-roasted pulled pork."

"-to find something and there's nothing fucking here."

"Maybe you're not looking hard enough," Kate says as she rounds the corner and sets her eyes on the Gecko brothers for the first time in two years.

Their arms immediately rise in perfect unison as they point their guns at her.

Kate just laughs under her breath and puts her gun away.

They haven't changed much. Seth's hair is a bit grayer at the temples and Richie's face is thinner, leaner. They're wearing dark jeans and Seth's got on a black t-shirt that shows off his tattoo, while Richie's sporting a black button-down shirt that doesn't have a single wrinkle on it.

Kate kind of misses the suits.

Richie lowers his gun first and breathes, "Kate."

"Gentlemen," Kate says, willing her voice to stay even and not crack with whatever it is she's feeling (_panic, pleasure, pain, heartbreak, anger, happiness, lust - _she really doesn't know).

"I thought I gave you close to $500,000 to get the hell out of Mexico," Seth says as he slowly lowers his gun, his voice low and rough.

"You did," Kate says, leaning against the arm of the first row of pews, fighting the urge to cross her arms over her chest.

"And yet here you are," he says, glaring at her.

"Here I am." She stares back at him.

"We knew she was still in the country, Seth. We've been hearing about the girl with the crossbow and the knives who slays vampires," Richie says, not taking his eyes off of her. "Now we have proof that it's her. You look lovely, Kate."

"Thank you," she says looking at Richie and feeling a smile creep up on her face. She wills it back down. Richie isn't going to be the difficult one here. Whatever it was that connected them in the first place is still in effect and she can feel the pull towards him. It's Seth that's going to be the tough one to convince that they need to go on a quest to defeat a bunch of gods.

"Kate," Seth says, stepping towards her. "You were supposed to go home."

"I am home," she says flatly. "Here. This country. These highways. What did you honestly expect me to do, Seth?"

"I expected you to get out of this country and forget about all this," he says waving his gun in the general direction of the knives strapped on her hips.

"How?" Kate asks, her eyes widening at the man's sheer obtuseness. "How was I supposed to do that? Have you managed to forget it? Because if you have, you gotta tell me your secret. Because I remember all of it. Every second. Everything they said, every drop of blood that…"

She stops talking and looks away. _No_, she thinks fiercely. She hasn't had a panic attack remembering how her father and brother died in months and she sure as anything isn't about to have one now in front of them.

No matter how much they may understand better than anyone.

"No," Seth says after a minute.

"No, what?" she asks looking at him.

He looks right back. "No, I haven't forgotten."

"Neither of us has," Richie adds. She glances at his neck at the high collar of his shirt and wonders if he still has the scars from the wounds Santanico Pandemonium inflicted. As if reading her mind (and Christ, he probably is), he lifts his chin slightly and she can see the edge of the puncture wounds on his jugular.

"I didn't think you'd go all Ellen Ripley on us, though," Seth says.

"Sarah Connor," Richie amends. "She's the more appropriate comparison."

"Whatever," Seth says. "I just thought-"

"That I'd go back to Texas and go to college? Or I'd get a job at Wal-Mart or JC Penney's and settle down?" Kate offers. She shakes her head. "I don't think those are options for me anymore."

"What did you do with the money?" Seth asks, his eyes assessing. "That jeep parked in the back yours?"

"The RV died on me," she says. "And I still have most of the money. Why? Do you need a loan?"

"We need you," Richie says simply.

Kate looks at him. "You picking up on things again?"

"Always," he says with a smirk. "We need you. We always did. And you need us."

"Doing okay on my own," Kate says shifting her weight and resting a hand on her gun. She may need them, but she's not going to come right out and say it. Not with Seth glaring at her like she's some wayward toddler.

"You're doing extremely okay," Richie says. "But something's coming and we need you now."

Chills spill down her spine, because she knew that, she _knew _she was right to worry, but it still makes her stomach turn to hear it confirmed. "What's coming?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. But we were sent here for a reason."

"Yeah," Seth says. "Reason being some asshole with bad taste in cantinas sent us to the middle of nowhere to catch up with princess here under the guise of learning more about that stupid myth."

"I came here about the myth, too," Kate says.

The looks they both give her is priceless: disbelief warring with confusion.

She rolls her eyes. "You aren't the only one with connections these days, fellas. Freddie sent me Sex Machine's research and this looked like a good place to start."

"Freddie?" Richie says as Seth says, "You keep in touch with the Ranger? Jesus Christ, Kate."

"He helps me out," Kate says, her voice rising. "He has better access to official reports than I do. He also managed to get all of the professor's research which I wouldn't have been able to do."

"So the ranger is sending a little girl off to do the dirty work," Seth says chuckling. "That's great. That's stellar law enforcement in action."

"He has more to lose than I do," Kate says, narrowing her eyes as she walks towards Seth. "He has a family. He has a home. I don't. It was an easy call to make."

"Easy?" Seth says looming over her while Richie says, "Yes, you do."

"What?" Kate asks looking at him.

"You have a home," Richie says. "With us. I thought I already made that clear. You should have come with us in the first place." He frowns at Seth. "I never liked that you sent her away. We should have talked about it."

"Hey, you were half dead at the time and a little unable to make decisions," Seth says. "I was giving her a chance!"

"A chance for what?" Kate shouts. Her voice echoes off the walls of the church and everyone falls silent. The only sound comes from the crosses clinking in the trees outside. Kate breathes in and out and looks at Seth. "You are under the impression that what happened to me didn't change me. Well, it did. I'm never going to be that girl who went to church on Sunday, did her homework, and sang in a choir. That's not me. Not anymore. I'm doing what I have to, because someone needs to."

She looks at them both. "Just like the two of you."

Richie nods while Seth shakes his head. "No. You're not like us."

"You think I didn't try?" Kate asks, her voice finally cracking. "I drove up to the border fifteen times those first few months." She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "But something kept pulling me back in."

She opens her eyes in time to see Richie's eyes brighten and a grin spread across his face. She rolls her eyes. "Yes, I've seen the Godfather trilogy. And before you ask, the third one's my favorite."

His face falls. "No. Why?"

"Andy Garcia's hot," she says with a shrug.

He, hand-to-God, looks like she's just kicked his puppy, but he recovers. "He's better in _The Untouchables_."

"Nah, _Internal Affairs_," Seth says.

"Anyway," Kate interrupts because she's sure they'd bicker forever if given the chance. "I'm here and you're here and I'm looking for proof that, once upon a time, two brothers defeated the gods. Because history needs to repeat itself."

"Excellent," Richie breathes, his eyes bright and Kate lets herself chuckle at the eager expression on his face.

"Shit," Seth says and he rubs the back of his neck.

Richie frowns at him. "Come on, Seth. It's not like you haven't been saying the same thing for months now. About how you're tired of the rinky-dink kills and how it'd be better to nuke the site from orbit somehow." He turns to Kate. "Great minds are clearly thinking alike."

"God help me," Kate says drily, but Richie just smirks at her.

"Fine," Seth says holding his hands in the air. "Fine. Let's take on the gods, why the hell not? Not like I had any plans for the rest of my life." He looks at Kate. "Where to first, Katie?"

"I have no idea," she says, wondering why it's so easy to fall back in with these two and wondering what that might say about her. "I just know that there might be something in this church that proves the myth could be real."

"Don't suppose we're going to find a secret weapon that will take them all out of our misery?" Seth says as Kate turns around and head towards the back of the church.

"That's too easy," Richie says. "It's a quest, Seth. There are trials."

"Great," Seth mutters.

Kate runs her hand along the back wall of the church, the plaster cool under her fingertips.

"I always knew we'd see you again," Richie says, his voice close by. She glances over her shoulder to see him less than a foot away. "You're the one that leads us, aren't you?"

"What?" she asks.

"What?" Seth echoes, looking over from where he was examining the stone floor.

"There's always a reason for the heroes to go on their quest," Richie says. "You're it."

"I would have thought ridding the world of those things would have been reason enough," Kate says.

"Oh, it is," Richie says. "But the heroes need something that keeps them going. Something good."

She narrows her eyes and remembers her conversation with Dakota and Cherry. "I'm not anyone's reward. I'm not some kind of a prize."

"Fair enough," Richie says. "But you are what will keep us going."

She rolls her eyes and really wishes more myths were written with women calling the shots and decides that when this is all over, she's going to write them.

"Found something," Seth says, stomping the heel of his boot on an uneven bit of stone.

The stone gives way and they can see stairs leading down into darkness. Kate slips her MagLite from her pocket and aims it down the shaft.

"Once, I'd like the creepy stuff to be in the attic instead of the basement," Seth mutters.

Kate starts forward before either of the men can and steps onto the first wooden step.

The plank of wood splinters under her feet and she starts to drop down. Two sets of strong hands grasp her waist and pull her up before she can even gasp. Her right hand comes to rest against Richie's heart while her left grips Seth's wrist.

Their pulses are steady under her palms and she stares at them both as they stare at her.

Eventually, she blinks then sighs and chuckles.

"Typical," she mutters.

"Want to let us in on the joke?" Seth asks.

She shakes her head and says, "Nothing. Just-"

"Dreams?" Richie says, leaning forward, his eyes glittering behind his glasses.

She looks up at him and makes a face. He just grins. "It's an incredible world we live in, Kate. Want to see what else we can find?"

Kate, not unkindly, shakes off their hold on her and faces them. Seth looks grim, but determined and Richie just smiles.

Aw, hell.

"Well, already been to hell once. Let's see if it improves the second time around. But this time…" She gestures at the hole in the floor and grins at the brothers. "One of you goes first."


	2. Chapter 2

So this is turning out to be a chaptered story of some sort. I have no idea how regular updates will be, but I promise to try to update weekly. All of the mythology and names mentioned come via online sources (Wikipedia). Very big thank you to fringedweller for betaing!

* * *

"Excuse me? We have to do what now?"

Kate looks up at Seth and is pretty sure his expression of what-the-fuck matches her own. But she repeats herself anyway, "We may have to steal the teeth of a god."

Seth just stares at her and she just shrugs a little helplessly.

The heat is stifling in the motel room. Sweat beads along her hairline and slips down to pool at the base of her spine. She's wearing the least amount of clothes that she feels comfortable in, cut-offs and a tank top, while Seth is sweltering in jeans and Richie still wears a button-down shirt.

"The teeth are the source of his power," Richie says, not looking up from the papers he has spread out on the table in front of him. "It makes sense, actually."

"Oh, does it?" Seth asks sarcastically, his eyes going wide. "Do explain, Richard."

Richie presses his lips together, folds his hands on top of one another and looks up at his brother. "The teeth supply a specific power to the god and he needs them to stay alive. Like we need our hearts to keep our blood flowing, he needs his teeth to survive. If the teeth are destroyed, then the god is destroyed."

"Teeth?" Seth repeats.

"Teeth," Richie say nodding his head slowly. "I can only hope he takes them out at night. Like Uncle Eddie did with his dentures."

Kate rolls her eyes. "Stop teasing him, Richie."

"Yeah, stop teasing your brother, Richard," Seth says with a glare. "Someone tell it to me straight. Do we have to steal _actual_ teeth out of some god's _actual_ mouth?"

"No. It's probably not really his actual teeth we have to steal," Kate says flipping through her journal to her notes on this particular god. "It's probably something else and the story about the god just used teeth to illustrate the power source."

"Great," Seth says coming to look over her shoulder at the illustration they found, his hand resting on the top of her chair, his knuckles brushing against her bare shoulder. "It is too fuckin' hot for this."

"So go jump in the pool," Kate says sifting through her papers.

"I hate getting wet," he says, knuckles still pressed against her shoulder. Heat radiates out across her body from the touch and God, she'd forgotten how much Seth liked to make physical contact with people.

The last week has been a crash course in Kate remembering Life with the Gecko Brothers and she's not sure if she's ready to bail on the whole thing and take her chances alone against the culebras or if she should just lace their food with sedatives because Jesus they have comments about _everything_. Seth keeps needling her, trying to make her lose her calm, and Richie keeps staring at her and if she's asked one more time to weigh-in on their current debate about who's the better actor (Pacino vs de Niro) she's going to shoot them both.

One thing's for damn sure: it's definitely too fuckin' hot for this.

The crypt under the church in Cuencamé had held several ancient texts, naturally all written in a language none of them knew.

However, a quick call from Kate to Ranger Gonzalez gained them the address of a man who could translate the text.

It also gained Kate a sore ear from Freddie raging in English and Spanish about her joining up with the Gecko brothers. She finally got him to stop yelling when she told him about the myth and her dreams and the fact that she was more than capable and, what's more, _willing_ to beat the crap out of either one of them if they even so much as put one toe out of line around her.

"I don't like it, Kate," Freddie had said practically snarling over the phone.

"What's to like?" she'd replied. "But we need them."

He muttered something in Spanish and told her to check in with him twice a month from then on.

She'd hung up, turned around and was confronted with the brothers looking very smug.

"Ranger Rick not happy with us?" Seth said.

"Don't start," Kate said flatly, holding up her hand. "In fact, Rule One of this little partnership is: There will be no putting of Kate in the middle of whatever little contests that arise between you and anyone else. You want to see who's the biggest dog in the yard? Get a ruler."

Seth snorted, while Richie arched an eyebrow.

"Rule Number Two," Kate held up two fingers, "There will be no trash-talking of Ranger Gonzalez in my vicinity. Got it?"

"Clear as crystal, princess," Seth said bending his head and meeting her eyes. "You got any more rules for us?"

"We'll start with those two and see how it goes," she'd said, narrowing her eyes.

A week later and the texts have been translated (and returned their rightful place in the church), they've holed up in a motel outside the city of Durango to read what they've found, and Kate's added two more rules to the list (Rule Number Three: Kate is not their maid so don't ever ask her to do laundry and Rule Number Four: Unless there are extenuating circumstances, two rooms will always be acquired at motels. Seth snores like a buzzsaw, Kate takes extremely long showers, and Richie talks in his sleep.).

"So, what?" Seth says as he leans on Kate's chair. "We _may_ have to figure out a way to get something that _may_ or _may not_ be teeth away from a god? Simple."

"I thought you two were professional thieves," Kate says leaning her head back to look up at Seth. "This should be a walk in the park for you."

"Gods are a little different than your usual Bank of America," Richie says frowning. "More of a challenge."

"Are you saying that you're not up for a challenge?" Kate asks him.

He looks up at her and the corner of his mouth curves up. "I'm always up for a challenge, Kate."

The challenging look on his face and the tone of his voice should not make her insides shiver and quake. But it does, because it always did, and she hopes that it doesn't show on her face as she says, "So, what do you need?"

"Aren't we forgetting something? We don't even know where this god is," Seth asks. He points at the picture. "That's a little dated and I doubt we're going to find him in the Yellow Pages."

"Actually, that's not the least of our worries," Richie says. "He may not be the god we need to defeat. I think Santanico was referring to venturing to Xibalba, which is where the brothers went to and eventually defeated the gods. The one with the teeth is on a different plane. We may be able to ignore him."

"Oh, and I was getting all excited about stealing teeth," Seth says as he fidgets behind Kate, jostling her chair. "You two do realize that this is insane? That we are insane for even thinking about doing this?"

"It has to be done," Richie says, looking up. "And we have the stories, we just have to figure out how it all fits together."

"How it fits together?" Seth shakes his head and then sits down on the chair between Kate and Richie. "We are not scholars, Richard. How the hell are we supposed to make sense of any of this crap?"

Richie leans back and half smiles at him. "You never apply yourself, Seth."

Kate rolls her eyes.

Seth hangs his head and says, "Fine, fine. But, let me ask the two of you this: who here at this table actually graduated from high school? Who here actually put on that cap and gown and walked across a stage and was handed a diploma?"

"That's hardly an accurate measurement of intelligence," Richie starts to say.

"Humor me," Seth says flatly, raising his head. "Hands up if you have a diploma."

Kate looks down at her hands and swallows hard. She can almost remember how easy everything felt before her mom died, how it was going to be her senior year and she was going to hang out with her friends and study hard so she could get into college and oh, they were going to go on a road trip and she was going to let Kyle get to third base because he had the nicest smile and it was going to be so, so sweet and fun and…

Her hands curl into fists.

"Right," Seth says nodding when no one raises their hand. "That's what I thought."

"A piece of paper that shows someone managed to navigate through the American school system is not going to help us here, Seth," Richie says. "We have practical experience on our side."

"Really? When was the last time you killed a god, Richard?" Seth asks.

"I've killed a demi-goddess," he says and Kate looks up at him. Richie looks perfectly calm apart from his hands which are tapping the pages of the book. Kate wonders how much of him mourns Santanico Pandemonium and if that's something she needs to worry about.

"Yeah, and that nearly killed all of us," Seth says.

"We have to try," Kate says.

Seth looks at her and she waits to see if he's going to pull her chair over to him. She plants her feet on the floor.

"Why?" he asks, his voice going soft. "Why the fuck do we have to try?"

"Because they're demons from hell and they don't belong on this earth," Kate says. "Because I've seen too many innocent people die. Because they killed my family and I want them all dead."

Seth leans in close, his hand returning to the back of her chair, caging her in. "And there it is. You want revenge." He shakes his head. "Revenge makes you sloppy, Kate. Turns your head inside out. Makes you unstable." He shrugs. "Besides, it's not going to bring them back. You can kill every vampire on this planet and it's not going to bring Scotty and Jacob-"

Kate violently pushes her chair back, dislodging Seth's hand, and gets to her feet. He falls forward slightly and then rights himself leaning back and looking up at her.

"You doing this for revenge, Katie?" he asks, voice still soft. "If so, then you may as well do me in first. After all, I got you into this in the first place."

Kate stares him down and doesn't realize she's taken a step forward until she sees him tilt his head back.

"Go ahead, Kate," he says, his voice cracking slightly on her name. "Get your licks in, honey. I won't fight back."

She pauses.

Seth _always_ fights back.

"Are you testing me right now?" she asks softly. "Are you seeing if I've got my balls screwed on tight, Seth? Are you making sure that the preacher's daughter can back up her big talk with some action? Is that what this is?" She cocks her head to the side. "Or do you want me to beat the crap out of you so you can feel like we're even somehow?"

Her hands loosen up at her sides and she shakes her head.

"I don't just want revenge and I'm not looking to settle some kind of score," she says quietly. "Not with them and not with you. The fact is that I don't know how to do anything else anymore."

Then she turns and leaves the room.

* * *

Kate sits beside the pool and stares at the reflection of the orange light from the street lamps touching off the tops of the ripples her feet make as she lifts them in and out of the water.

Despite being something close to midnight, it's still hot and the air is stifling. She's contemplating just slipping into the water to cool off when she hears footsteps and isn't surprised to see Richie pull over a deck chair and sit down next to her. His leg brushes against her shoulder as he offers her a cigarette.

Silently, she takes it and lets him light it for her. The flare of the lighter reflects in his glasses. She takes a drag and slowly lets the smoke enter her lungs and then she blows it out.

"You inhale now," he says around his own cigarette.

"Still not a smoker though," she counters.

They smoke in silence and stare at the pool for a moment.

"Still seeing me bleeding out?" she asks, gesturing at the water.

"No," he says evenly. "You look incredibly well put-together at the moment."

"Don't feel it," she says.

"He's scared," he says, leaning forward, resting his arms on his knees. "You scare him."

She looks at Richie in disbelief. "I scare him? How on earth do I scare him?"

"Because you haven't let this change you," he says. "Because you still have a light inside of you. Because you didn't take him up on his offer."

"To hit him?" Kate asks. "What good would that have done anyone?"

"None at all," Richie says grinning. "He'd probably have a broken nose by now and it wouldn't have changed anything." He reaches out a tucks her hair behind her ear. "You have a better grasp on your impulses than he does and it freaks him out."

Kate rolls her eyes. "Richie-"

"We need you, Kate," he says, his hand curving around her cheek. His palm is cool against her skin and she involuntarily leans into it. "You help keep us steady."

"I have to say, apart from this most likely futile attempt of ours to destroy all the vampires, I don't know if _I_ need _you_," she says, looking up at him.

"Oh, you probably don't," Richie says. He tilts her head up slightly, rubbing his thumb over the apple of her cheek, and leans in closer. "But we're good guys to have around if you need something stolen."

"Like a god's teeth?" Kate asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"Amongst other things, yeah," he says nodding. "We don't mind being used by beautiful women either. In fact, we're kind of suckers for that."

Kate manages a small laugh.

"Don't let Seth run you off, please," he says, his thumb still moving over her skin. "And if punching him would help at all, you have my express permission to go for it."

"I'll keep it in mind," Kate says drily. "He's just so…abrasive."

"In other words, I'm an asshole," Seth's voice comes from behind them.

"Nothing you didn't already know, brother," Richie says, not taking his hand from Kate's cheek.

Kate sighs and presses her hand to Richie's briefly then leans back. His hand drops to his lap. Seth comes over and sits down on the other side of Kate, careful not to get his shoes wet.

He looks at her and she stares back, arching an eyebrow at him.

"You want me to say 'I'm sorry'?," he asks.

"Not really," she says shrugging.

"Well, I am," he says. "Sorry, about all of it. About...everything." He looks down at his hands. "I'm an asshole and I'm sorry, Kate."

Kate doesn't really know what to say, so she takes one last drag off her cigarette and then stubs it out on the concrete behind her.

She looks at Seth and he looks back at her.

"You really are an asshole, but I forgive you, Seth," she says. "That what you want to hear?"

"Yes," he says nodding. "It really fucking is. And you want to know just how much of an asshole I really am?" He leans in, planting his hand on the ground behind her, once again caging her in, the heat from his body making it hard for her to catch her breath. "I don't even care that you don't mean it."

Kate just laughs and tilts her head to the side as she says, "Oh, yes, you do."

Then she plants her hands on his chest and pushes him into the pool.

Seth hits the water with a spectacular flailing of the arms and Kate makes a face when water splashes her shorts and top.

"That was kind of satisfying," she says as Seth emerges, spluttering and wiping his face.

"I'm sure it was," Richie says, wiping drops of water off his shoes.

"That how we're playing it, princess?" Seth says walking over to her, his steps sluggish due his jeans weighed down with water.

She shrugs. "I didn't want to break a nail punching you in the face."

Kate only has a moment of warning before his hands are curved around her butt and he's lifting her in the air and then dropping her into the pool.

She shrieks before she sinks under the water and bounces back up immediately and latches on to him, pulling him back under.

Kate hooks a leg around his waist and holds him down until she needs a breath, then she lets go and sucks in air, just as he pounces on her and drags her back under. She manages to knee him in the stomach and he lets her go with a burbled grunt and a pained expression. She surfaces and blinks the water from her eyes. Her tanktop is plastered to her body and she has no doubt they can both see the purple flowers on her bra, and Seth is grinning like a madman at her.

"Someone's learned how to play dirty," he says, his t-shirt sticking to him and his jeans riding low on his hips.

"Whatever it takes to get the job done, right?" Kate says, starting to grin herself.

"As titillating as this is," Richie says from his deckchair. "We do have research left to do. So, if you two are done posturing…"

Seth glances at his brother and then at Kate. His grin becomes wicked and Kate snickers in return. Then they both lunge for Richie and pull him and the deckchair into the pool.

He's underwater only for a second before breaking free to stand up and glare at them. "Very mature."

Seth splashes him in the face. Richie grabs Kate and throws her at Seth. She shrieks before smacking Seth and they both go underwater.

It's pretty much a free-for-all after that.

Kate gets in a few good kicks and manages to pull a couple of buttons off of Richie's shirt, while Seth loses his shirt completely somehow. The straps of Kate's tanktop get stretched so much she's fairly sure she won't be able to wear it again.

They only stop when someone yells, "Jesus fucking Christ, shut the hell up! People are sleepin' here!"

"Fuck you!" Seth shouts back.

"Go to hell!" the voice yells.

Richie stops cold. His eyes blink rapidly behind his glasses that have miraculously managed to stay on his face.

"That's it," he says faintly. "That's- That's it!"

He cups Kate's face, kisses her forehead and then pushes her at Seth. She flails a bit and Seth steadies her while watching Richie pull himself out of the pool and race back to their room, leaving a trail of water behind him.

"What's it?" Kate asks frowning.

"Beats the hell out of me," Seth says. He looks down and seems to realize his hand is splayed on her bare stomach where her shirt has risen up. He jerks his hand away and moves back from her.

Kate just moves to float on her back to stare up at the sky. Her body rocks as Seth moves around in the pool, taking his shoes off. He throws them on to the pool deck.

"Those were actually decent leather, you know?" he says.

"They'll dry," she says, making a face and deciding she doesn't want her cut-offs on anymore. She slips below the surface and manages to take her shorts off.

She surfaces with a gasp and throws her shorts onto the side of the pool. They land with a heavy splat and she looks over at Seth who's warily eyeing her and her bare legs.

"They're legs, Seth," she says, matter-of-factly.

"They're _nice_ legs, Kate," he retorts.

Her cheeks burn with a blush and it's an unfamiliar feeling so she ducks her head a little in the pool and tries to laugh it off, "You having impure thoughts about me?"

"Yes," he says bluntly. Kate stares at him. He sighs and scrubs his hand over his hair. "'Course, I had impure thoughts about you last time, too. Guess I'm a fucking bastard in addition to being an asshole, hunh?"

Kate doesn't know what to say. She returns to floating on her back, staring up at the black night sky.

"Why're you still here, princess?" he asks, his voice very close by.

"I told you already," she says softly.

"I get the revenge and I get the lack of options," he says. "But Kate, you really could've left this place."

She sighs and knows what he means. She also knows why he's pushing, because it's the hard answer he's after. The real reason she couldn't ever leave this life she's made for herself.

Kate takes a deep breath and says, "Why on earth would I leave the thing I'm good at? The thing that I actually, in some strange, dark part of myself -" She trails off.

"Enjoy doing?" he finishes for her.

She doesn't say anything else. She can't. It's out there now. She put it into words and she said them out loud to one of the few people who can understand and she feels both relieved and sort of sick to her stomach.

"My first job without my Uncle Eddie," Seth says, floating beside her, his hands making awkward gestures in the air while he tries to stay afloat, "I was fourteen years old and on my own. Richie was too young and I don't know, I had this thought that maybe he could get away from the family business. Anyway, I'm parked outside this bank and I'm sweating bullets. I'd been over and over the plan in my head a million times, but it just flew out of my head the second I saw the door to the bank. I check my watch and it's time."

He lowers his body into the water and faces her. She does the same and treads water in front of him.

"The second I stepped in that bank, mask on my face, I felt it," he says, his voice low and smooth. "It was so easy, Kate. All of it. It went like clockwork. The plan wasn't this thing that I'd studied anymore, it was part of me. I _was_ the plan. I was breaking laws and doing something so fucking illegal, but it was working. _I_ was working."

He floats closer and she has to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. "It's addictive, Katie. That feeling of success. Of a good job well fucking done. And I'm so fucking sorry that you're feeling it over this shit."

She stares at him and she wants to lift her hands and traces the lines of shadows on his face. But she doesn't. She just nods.

"Do you hate me, Kate?" he asks after a few moments.

She thinks about it and shakes her head. "No, I don't. Not today."

"All right. I can live with that," he says nodding.

They hear footsteps rapidly approaching and Seth moves away from her and ducks down under the water.

"They get invited to the underworld," Richie says excitedly waving some papers in the air.

"Who does?" Kate asks.

"The brothers," he says smiling. "Look, they don't just go down there, they're invited. They're invited because they're making too much noise. Because they make a reputation for themselves as being too clever and by besting the gods."

"So...we need to make some noise?" Seth asks, looking up at Richie.

He nods. "And I think we do need to steal some teeth."

"Well, never stole those before," Seth says. "What's the plan, brother?"

Richie looks thoughtful. "We're going to need to figure out how to find the god first and then we're going to need a distraction of some kind."

"I've got that covered," Kate says. The brothers look at her and she shrugs. "I know people."

"Oh, she knows people," Seth says sarcastically. "That's great."

She sends a spray of water to his face.

"But first," Richie says, setting down the papers and taking off his glasses. "We have unfinished business in this pool." He looks at Seth. "Admit that de Niro is the better actor with a better range than Pacino and I might take it easy on you."

"Three words for you, little brother," Seth says. "_Meet the_ fucking _Fockers_."

"That's four words and you're going down," Richie says.

"Personally, I think they're both overrated," Kate says. They both look at her but she just grins and starts to swim away.

They catch her, naturally.

She doesn't cry uncle, though and manages to knee them both in their respective groins.

Hey, it's better than shooting them, right?

* * *

The impact of what they're going to do hits her the following morning and, not for the last time, Kate wonders what she's gotten into.


End file.
